Of Costumes, Star Trek, and Drawings

When I was a kid, I was crazy about Star Trek. I remember spending hours each day imagining myself as part of the crew, even as far back as when I was 5 or 6. I got this love for it from my dad, I guess, since he is a die-hard fan himself. As I got older and switched from watching the original series (which were already reruns by the time I started watching them) to the movies, my imagination and excitement over it grew. I wasn’t keen on Star Trek: TNG until I saw a few episodes, and then I couldn’t stop watching them. I just had to see them and it was the worst punishment ever to miss a show.When I was about 13, we were living in Ottawa, Canada, and there was a Star Trek convention being held at one of the hotels. We (my brothers, sister and I) had made drawings of ships and design suggestions we thought could be used. We were so sure they were going to use them that we wanted to give them to the studio and actually expected them to be incorporated into the show. Ha. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but my mom decided to take us to the hotel to see if we could see any of the actors and give them this package of drawings. We had some costumes she had made for us, so we put them on for our outing. I wish I had a scan of that photo. I was dressed as a cheerleader, one of my brothers was a clown, and my other brother and sister were frogs, complete with fluoresent green stockings, heads, body suits, webbed hands and feet. I remember walking through a mall on our way to the hotel and seeing peoples reactions to the frog costumes was priceless. When we got to the hotel, mom found out it would have cost $100 for the five of us to get in, way more than we could afford. We were disappointed but waited outside, along with the t.v. crew from the channel that aired Star Trek for whoever was coming to pass. Suddenly a group of people rapidly came our direction. James Doohan (Scotty) was in the middle, surrounded by his bodyguards. In the split second it took for them to pass us, my mom gave the package to my sister and told her to give it to him, so she ran, in her frog outfit, to give it. She actually got up to him and almost put it in his hand and as he was looking down to see who it was, one of his bodyguards picked her up and moved her aside without missing a beat. We were so upset that he didn’t get the package. I mean, we went to so much trouble and it didn’t happen. My sister did make the 6 o’clock news, though. She was only about 7 at the time so it was cute. Later, mom told me we could mail the package anyway to the studio, so she had me call the hotel to see if I could get an address from them. I have always been uncomfortable with making calls where I wasn’t sure I would say what I needed to and get the right information. To this day it is hard for me, but it was way harder then. I remember rehersing what I would say, and I’m sure the receptionist had a good laugh at my request. Remember we didn’t have internet then so we couldn’t just Google it. Well, I couldn’t get the address, but mom was able to later and we sent it. I’ve always wondered what they did with it. It probably ended up in some giant pile of fan mail and was forgotten. Around that time, Star Trek:TNG was switched from an air channel to cable, and since we never had cable, we couldn’t watch it any more. That was a sad day for me. Over the years, I saw various episodes but never saw it all the way through, so imagine my joy when I was able to download all 7 seasons, plus bonus stuff, in one package. I’ve been working through it for a few months now and am happy to finally understand it well. But I’ll never forget the day we all dressed in our crazy costumes and trekked the city in search of adventure.